The owner of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth may consider requesting an adjustment to the plant’s license that would allow the plant to draw warmer water from Cape Cod Bay than is currently allowed.

The ongoing heat wave forced Pilgrim to power down to 85 percent around noon Wednesday because the seawater from Cape Cod Bay, used to cool key systems, exceeded the maximum 75 degree temperature allowed under the plant’s license. The situation was a first in the plant’s 40-year history. […]

The temperature of the seawater being drawn from the bay must be cool enough to remove heat from the nuclear reactor’s generating system and convert steam from the system back to liquid water. The ocean water, although warmer when it is discharged to the bay, must not be so warm that it affects the ecosystem.

Cape Cod Bay is home to an incredibly diverse range of birds, fish and wildlife. It’s habitat for the critically-endangered North Atlantic right whale, favorite sea mammals like seals and dolphins, shorebirds, and fish vital to both commercial and sport fishermen, from flounder to bluefin tuna to striped bass.

“Nobody ever predicted the water temperatures would go up this high in the Northeast when the plants were designed in the 1960s,” Nuclear Regulatory Council spokesman Neil Sheehan has said.

While New England has succeeded in weaning itself almost completely off of coal power, it remains far too dependent on natural gas and nuclear power. At this moment, New England is getting 74% of its power from gas and nuclear, with just 1% coming from wind energy.

A Homegrown Solution: Offshore Wind

Right now, America’s Atlantic Coast has not a single permanent offshore wind turbine. But America’s Atlantic Coast is home to some of the best offshore wind resources in the world, as the National Wildlife Federation detailed in our report last year, The Turning Point for Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy. Projects are moving forward off Cape Cod and off Block Island, and the federal government is on track to auction leases for development off a total of 5 states this year – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. This is exciting progress, but leadership from states along the coast is urgently needed to ensure that offshore wind power plays a major role in the region’s energy future.

“New England needs to diversify its energy sources and properly-sited and responsibly-developed offshore wind energy can protect wildlife, cut climate-disrupting carbon pollution, and create thousands of jobs,” says Catherine Bowes, senior manager for climate and energy at the National Wildlife Federation’s Northeast Regional Center. “Local, state and federal officials need to keep working make the golden opportunity of offshore wind a reality.”

And best of all for wildlife, a coalition of top conservation organizations and offshore wind developers have agreed to a series of voluntary measures that will protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, while helping to expedite responsible offshore wind development, in the Mid-Atlantic.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2013/07/climate-change-fueled-heat-stresses-nuclear-plant-may-threaten-cape-cod-bay-wildlife/feed/0June Ocean Wildlife Roundup: Shark Chomps Giant Squid, Seals on Camera, Cuttlefish in Troublehttp://blog.nwf.org/2012/06/june-ocean-wildlife-roundup-shark-chomps-giant-squid-seals-on-camera-cuttlefish-in-trouble/
http://blog.nwf.org/2012/06/june-ocean-wildlife-roundup-shark-chomps-giant-squid-seals-on-camera-cuttlefish-in-trouble/#respondWed, 27 Jun 2012 14:41:46 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=60631We spend lots of time on Wildlife Promise talking to you about amazing animals in the U.S. and elsewhere. But in my opinion, we don’t use nearly enough digital ink on marine life. I hope we can remedy that in part by putting out a monthly blog digest featuring a few odd or important news items about ocean creatures of all types.Enjoy, and please let me know what I missed.

Australia’s Giant Cuttlefish in Trouble as Weak Spawning Season Continues

Australian giant cuttlefish may be in trouble, as evidenced by low summer spawning numbers (flickr| richard ling)

The rocky coastline of the Upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia is the only place in the world where the Australian Giant Cuttlefish spawn in large numbers, and it has become a popular spot for scientists and cephalopod-loving weirdoes like me each year.

Researchers say the low numbers are cause for concern, and they don’t yet know what’s causing the trend (though “BHP Billiton’s proposed desalination plant” nearby probably won’t help. It would reportedly pour “huge quantities of hypersaline wastewater” into Spencer Gulf and make the area unpalatable for a variety of species). A new study finds that the cuttlefish breeding colony had decreased by 78% in the past decade, and last year marked a record low.

The image rehabilitation plan comes as local fishermen ramp up claims that the seals have been depleting area fish stocks. Recent cases of people pestering—and in some cases killing—the seals have come partly as a reaction to these rumors, and spurred scientists to “glue submersible cameras onto the seals’ backs, using the footage to prove to fishermen the animals are not harming their way of life.”

Video: Blue Shark Chomps Giant Squid

Giant squid are mysterious, awesome and locked in an eternal arms race with sperm whales. Live sightings are so rare that even footage of a recently dead Architeuthis is a pretty big deal. Recently, Australian angler and journalist Al McGlashan came across a largely-intact carcass whose bright red coloration indicated it had died recently. While he filmed, a blue shark tore into the squid, thus launching the best cephalopod viral phenomenon of 2012 (so far…I eagerly await your videos of octopuses singing ‘Call Me, Maybe’). Take a look at Field & Stream’s exclusive full-length video and photos right this second.

Canadian Lobster is Blue, Yet in Decent Spirits

Canadian lobster boat captain Bobby Stoddard caught a lobster in early May that resembled a giant Avatar cat person. That’s the way we say ‘it was blue’ in America now.

Blue lobsters do occur, but they’re uncommon. According to The University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, “only an estimated one in two million lobsters is blue” (which makes them rare, but not quite as rare as live, naturally red or yellow lobsters, which are estimated at one in ten million and one in 30 million, respectively). Blue lobsters come about due to “a genetic defect that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein.”

Manta Ray Ultrasound Sheds Light on Liquid Oxygen Intake

A study recently published in Biology Letters is the first to show how manta ray embryos get oxygen, based on video from an ultrasound performed on a pregnant ray in 2008.

Though manta rays, like many other cartilaginous fish, give birth to live young, they lack an oxygen-giving umbilical cord or placenta. According to researchers, “the baby ray was raising and lowering its jaw, pumping uterine fluid in through its mouth and spiracle.” The continuous regulated flow of the fluid over the ray’s gills allowed the embryo to extract oxygen (the baby was “a healthy female, 2 meters from wingtip to wingtip and weighing 50 kilograms” at birth). According to Taketeru Tomita, a fish biologist at Hokkaido University Museum, this is the first time that scientists have observed fetal viviparious vertebrates pumping liquid to extract oxygen.

Great Whites Summering in Cape Cod

Researchers tag a shark near Chatham, MA, in 2009. Tagged great whites recently returned to Cape Cod to feed on seals. (flickr | Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs)

Researchers say the sharks were drawn to the area by “a growing seal population on Monomoy Island,” redoubt of migrating birds and other non-humans for hundreds of years. They haven’t come close enough to tourist beaches to warrant any official warning, though mayhem will presumably occur if the star-crossed Brody family gets too close.

If you’ve seen a story that you think should be covered in the next Ocean Wildlife Roundup, please let me know in the comments below, email me at greenbergm@nwf.org, or tell me on Twitter @MaxTGreenberg.